Movie notes: Keeping Michael Jackson under wraps

Michael Jackson preps for the shows that never were in “This Is it,” which opens Tuesday night.

Here’s a new wrinkle on stopping opening-day reviews  screen the movie for critics just hours before it opens to the general public.

That happens with horror movies, gross-out comedies and other niche products, which are sometimes screened for critics on Thursday night and then made available to paying customers at midnight. But it’s rare for the strategy to be employed with a movie opening Wednesday, and even rarer to be used on something as eagerly anticipated as “Michael Jackson’s This Is It.”

Featuring backstage material and rehearsal footage from his London shows that were to have been his big comeback, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” will be screened for critics at 8:30 Tuesday night as part of a worldwide rollout that includes several gala premieres. Not long after those are over, advance screenings will begin for the general public.

In San Antonio, the film will play at every multiplex (except the Fiesta 16 and Embassy) at 11 p.m. Regal’s Cielo Vista will have screenings at 11 and 11:30. It will also play at Alamo Drafthouse.

Coming months after his death and fueled by the nonstop media coverage that surrounded it, the film is expected to do well at the box office. But no one really knows for sure.

“Not quite a concert film, not quite a documentary, ‘This Is It’ is like nothing that has hit theaters before,” the Associated Press’ David Germain wrote.

The ubiquitous box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Germain, “It reminds me of ‘Blair Witch,’ it reminds me of ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ it reminds me of ‘Passion of the Christ.’ You even have to throw in ‘Snakes on a Plane.’ Films that are bigger than life and just unpredictable. We don’t really know how they’re going to do.”

The film is 112 minutes and rated PG (for some suggestive choreography and scary images). We’ll have a review in Weekender, of course, but we’d love to hear what you think about the movie, too. Leave a comment below.